The Pardes Student Journal Spring 2023

םייח סדרפ

םייח סדרפ

Faculty Editor / Rav Raḥel Berkovits

Student Editor / Sarah Biskowitz

Design and Layout / Valerie Brown and Sarah Biskowitz

Cover Art / Mindy Hirsch

Our Story of Liberation and Peoplehood

About Raḥel

Rahel Berkovits has been teaching mishnah, talmud and halakha at Pardes for over twenty-five years. Rahel lectures widely in both Israel and abroad especially on topics concerning women and Jewish law and a Jewish sexual ethic. She is the Halakhic Editor and a writer for Hilkhot Nashim, the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance’s Halakhic Source-Guide Series published by Maggid Books. Rahel is a founding member of Congregation Shirah Hadasha, a halakhic partnership synagogue, and serves on their halakha committee. In June 2015, Rahel received Rabbinic Ordination from Rabbis Herzl Hefter and Daniel Sperber. Rahel loves playing basketball, especially with Pardes students.

About Sarah

Sarah Biskowitz is a student in the Year Program and the journal editor fellow at Pardes. She also leads the popular Pardes Yiddish Club. Sarah worked at the Yiddish Book Center as the 2021-2022 Richard S. Herman fellow in bibliography and exhibitions. A graduate of Smith College, her work has been published in Jewish Currents, Hey Alma, Pakn Treger, and In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies. She has spoken about Yiddish culture at the Maine Conference for Jewish Life, the Association of Jewish Studies conference, and various synagogue and Moishe House events. For more information, visit www.sarahbiskowitz.com

From the Faculty Editor

The Torah is called Living, as it says (Proverbs 3:18), “It is a Tree of Life [etz ḥayyim] for those who hold fast to it, and all its supporters are happy [mushar].”

Avot D'Rabbi Natan Chapter 34:11

From the Student Editor

Beginning with despair and ending in triumph, the Exodus narrative continues to shape the identity of the Jewish people, and remains one of the most famous and influential stories ever told.

flected on the emotions it imbues, and writers penned stories and analysis from perspectives like feminism, neo-Hasidism, and revolutionism.

The midrash's comparison of Torah to a living, growing organism emphasizes that its body is always expanding—creating new roots, branches and leaves as more people study it. Just as the tree provides people with oxygen that sustains us, so too is Torah the breath and life of the Jewish people. We chose to name our Student Torah Journal Pardes Ḥayyim as a play on the notion of Torah being an Etz Ḥayyim. Our student body is made up of a diverse group of individuals, and each one brings their own unique voice as a learner and reader of Torah. Using art, poetry, music, and creative writing, they have each shown how they hold fast to Torah and how it is alive and growing in their lives today. Together, these living trees of Torah create the orchard that is Pardes. Their roots gain substance and sustenance from the same soil, but each tree develops in its own distinct fashion. This year, Sarah and I selected that the Journal should focus on the Pardes theme of the year "Exodus: Our Story of Libera-

tion and Peoplehood." All the entries to the journal focus on this same theme and what unfolds is multiple ways in which the same concept can be read, understood, and discussed. Each contributor interacted with the concept in a different manner and from a different perspective, and the Torah texts that inspired their works are presented at the end of each piece. Our orchard of living Torah is vibrant and growing and all should feel free to come and enjoy it.

We hope you will find osher as you wander through our orchard and encounter the living Torah of our Pardes learning community.

Politically, it has been evoked by Jewish movements such as Zionism and the campaign for Soviet Jewry as well as more universal causes like abolitionism and Civil Rights in the United States and Catholic resistance to authoritarian regimes in South America.

In Jewish practice, the story of the Exodus is recounted each year at the Passover seder. As Exodus 10:2 instructs us, we tell this story to each new generation. This ritual has proved enduring and popular. For example, according to the 2013 Pew Research survey of Jewish Americans, the Passover seder is the most widely-practiced Jewish ritual by American Jews. Over the past two years, Jews who have fled or remained in Ukraine have continued to hold seders while experiencing great hardship.

Ben Bag Bag would say about Torah, “Turn it and turn it again for all is in it” (M. Avot 5:22). No narrative illustrates this better than the Exodus. Each year at Passover, we return to its message of perseverance and liberation, and it provides us hope for a better world.

We end the seder by declaring, “Next year in Jerusalem.” But as this journal showcases, it is we Pardes students who have had the privilege of spending this year studying Torah in Jerusalem. In this journal, we’ve told our own stories based on the ancient narrative of the Exodus, contributing our voices to the chain of tradition. For me, it has been the opportunity of a lifetime to learn with and from this community. Thank you to my fellow students for sharing your talents, Torah and wisdom in this journal, and in the Beit Midrash every day this year.

Raḥel Berkovits Faculty Editor

Across time and place, the Exodus narrative has resonated with countless generations of Jews and others resisting oppression and struggling for liberation.

And the verses in the book of Shemot telling of the experiences leaving Egypt provided ample inspiration for the Pardes community to create thought-provoking and diverse submissions to this journal. Artists rendered this tale in visual or musical form, poets re-

B’virkat Torah V’Chesed, Sarah Biskowitz Student Editor

The Pharaoh Within...

By Anonymous

I put lamb’s blood over the door of my heart

I pray out to G-d over and over

To never bring me back to Egypt, back to you

A slave to your vindictive ways

I fled Egypt many years ago,

But some days it feels like Egypt never fled me

I carry the memories of Pharaoh’s commanding voice

His restriction and coercion echoes in my head

My stomach still knots and tongue still curls at his name

I keep him alive by replaying the long nights and hot days

I run my fingers over my calloused cheeks, where sunburnt blisters once pulsated under Egyptian sun

The scars remain

When I feel thirsty,

I am flashed back to days spent labouring

Under his thumb

Under his control and regime

Nothing belonged to me

My body, my mind, my freedom, my nights; were all his

I gulp down a gallon of lamb’s blood

Thirsty and desperate to exorcise the plague that lives within

A drop of blood dribbles down my chin

I wipe it away as I glance up to the land in front of me

Milk and honey

Bounty of greenery and laughing children

My hand reaches out, but I cannot grasp it

Long dreamt of freedom is finally here

I have arrived to the promised land

And yet it feels like a hologram

Ungraspable

I grew up in Egypt

Raised by the Pharaoh himself

All I’ve ever known is his kingdom

I try to shake his memory out of my mind

But Egypt has a tight grip

Shuddering, as my body recoils at the memory of his hands on me

I lean down in front of the Galilee

Dipping my hand into her fresh waters

I splash my face and furiously scrub myself down

Trying, desperately, to wash away the feeling of Pharaoh atop of me

His fingers tracing my thigh, his tongue inside my mouth

Pharoah dwells within me

I try to distract myself by humming the Song of The Sea But no hymn nor song nor prayer

Will part the sea of memories that lives within

No matter how many times I wash myself

I still find Egyptian sand on me

I have walked through the wilderness

Crawled and limped and dragged myself out of the tight grip of his regime

Out of desperation for solace

I climb my way to the Sinai of my heart

Collapsing to my knees

And yelling out to G-d

Show me a better way

There seems to be no ointment no balm no remedy

For removing Pharaoh

I am desperate

And pleading

G-d show me a better way

I grew up in the land of Egypt

With Pharaoh in my home, in my bed

My body, my mind, my freedom, my nights; all his

I left Egypt

But Egypt has not left me

On my knees, atop Sinai, I call out once more

G-d show me a better way

G-d illuminates from within

Filling and enveloping me in white light

And says

Build a sanctuary for me and I will dwell within you

Day in and day out, I show up at the altar of being

I part the seas of Pharaoh within

Brick by brick

I deepen my breath, slow down my life

Leaning into the solace of friends, and nature, and writing

When the tears come, I allow

When the pain comes, I allow

When the joy comes, I allow

When memories of Egypt arise, I fill and envelope them in G-d’s light

Where Pharaoh’s fingers once touched and tongue once traced

I fill and envelope in G-d’s light

The nooks and crannies littered in sand

The scars that remain

The thirst that felt unquenchable

The memories that caused shudders

The sound of his name

I fill and envelope in G-d’s light

G-d’s light is the solace, the ointment, the balm, and remedy

It is the promised land

Reclamation of what was never his; my body, my mind, my freedom, my nights

With G-d’s guiding hand

I make a tabernacle of myself

Cherubim spread their wings atop my head

All is holy and all is held

Brick by brick

Day by day

Moment by moment

I make a sanctuary of myself

So G-d may dwell within me

About Anonymous

Anonymous is a student at Pardes.

The Revolutionary Story of the Women's Seder

By Sarah Biskowitz

In 2011, the year I became a bat mitzvah, I crowded into the Milwaukee JCC with a lively group for the Community Women’s Seder. I followed along as dozens of Jewish women, of all ages and denominations, led us in rituals and prayers. We used a special haggadah that discussed women’s experiences, singing and dancing along the way. As a young teenager, this event made me realize that my feminist and Jewish identities were not only compatible but complementary. Recently, I gained a newfound appreciation for Women’s Seders after learning their inspiring history.

The Telling: The Story of a Group of Jewish Women Who Journey to Spirituality through Community and Ceremony (1993) by E.M. [Esther] Broner illuminates how the Women’s Seder that I attended as a twelveyear-old was the legacy of a historic feminist phenomenon. The story of the original Women’s Seders provides a rich example for us contemporary young Jews to find grounding in the Jewish tradition, and build new meanings and communities upon it.

In 1975, Broner and Naomi Nimrod (an Israeli scholar) recognized the sexism of the typical Passover seder. Seders often revolved around male attendees, while relying on the thankless labor of women. And only the male heroes of the Exodus were celebrated.

Broner and Nimrod came up with a radical idea: creating a seder that centered Jewish women, past and present. Working to “[enlarge their] matrilineage,” they created

The Women’s Haggadah. The Women’s Haggadah feminized traditional parts of the seder, including The Four Daughters (instead of the Four Sons), The Plagues of Women, and a feminist Dayenu. It added the stories of Ima Shalem and Beruriah of the Talmud, and recognized the heroines of the Exodus like Miriam.

Using this haggadah, the first communal Women’s Seders were held concurrently in New York and in Haifa in 1976. After that, Broner continued to co-lead an annual Women's Seder with more or less the same group in New York City. Many famous second-wave American Jewish feminists were regular organizers or attendees, including activist Gloria Steinem, politician Bella Abzug, and writers Grace Paley and Letty Cottin Pogrebin. There were also many accomplished but lesser-known feminists, like artist Bea Kreloff, Canadian journalist Michele Landsberg, and American-Israeli filmmaker Lily Rivlin. As other communities were inspired and began to hold their own Women’s Seders, Broner and her cohort continued to meet every Passover for thirty years.

To begin the seder each year, Broner invited participants to introduce themselves by reciting their mothers and grandmothers. Over the years, the group members themselves began to refer to each as Seder Sisters. Eventually, biological and surrogate daughters joined as well.

her to discover “the purpose of ritual” and Jewish community.

Maintaining the annual seder was not always easy–clashes and tensions sometimes emerged. Broner embraced discussion and critique, explaining: “Like any sports game, analysis and gossip are all part of the mixture, the mortar.” But when rifts lingered, the group invented rituals to communicate and reconcile, including a Healing Ceremony around Rosh Hashanah.

The Women’s Seder evolved along with the Sisters, and the Jewish feminist world as a whole. The group adapted their Hebrew prayers to use feminine language and invoke the Shekhinah as a divine female presence. They incorporated old Yiddish songs and readings reflecting the current political moment. When Debbie Friedman recorded the album And You Shall Be A Blessing (1989) and when Judith Plaskow published Standing at Sinai (1990), the seder excerpted these works.

The Women’s Seder represented just a small piece of its participants’ Jewish feminist involvement; these women devoted their lives to causes that remain pressing. Broner and several others were part of the first group of women to take a Torah to the Kotel; this group later became Women of the Wall, who are still fighting for the freedom to pray at the Kotel without harassment. At the seder in 1991, activist Merle Hoffman declared, “soon it will be illegal to have an abortion in this country.” Unfortunately, her prediction has become all too true in many states. Jewish feminist activism is needed now more than ever on these

issues and more.

I am grateful for the Seder Sisters’ groundbreaking work to forge Jewish feminist ritual and community. Though their lifestyles, professions, and Jewish observance differed, the Seder Sisters gathered every year on Passover to recount the Exodus and discuss how to bring our world from Mitzrayim (the narrow place) to Yerushalayim (a city of peace). They serve as an inspiring example for contemporary young Jews of all genders and backgrounds to come together, celebrate our heritage, and contribute to its evolution and vibrancy.

I did not know about the origin of the Women’s Seder when I attended as a pre-teen in 2011, but now I am proud to claim my spot in the Seder Sisters’ legacy. This Passover, let’s recount not only the story of Moses but also of Miriam, Yocheved, Batyah, Shifrah, and Puah. And let’s remember not only the generation of Israelites who experienced the liberation of the Exodus, but also the many generations who fought for women’s liberation, within and beyond the Jewish community–including the Seder Sisters.

About Sarah Biskowitz

In this way, the Seder Sisters became a “chosen family,” as Gloria Steinem called it,

Sarah Biskowitz ia student in the Year Program and the journal editor fellow at Pardes. She also leads the popular Pardes Yiddish Club. Sarah worked at the Yiddish Book Center as the 2021-2022 Richard S. Herman fellow in bibliography and exhibitions. For more information, visit www.sarahbiskowitz.com

Artist Statement

Here is a digital collage depicting the sight of the splitting of the Red Sea. Initially getting inspiration for the project from the depiction of the same scene in “Prince of Egypt,” I’ve been creatively inspired by the experience of splitting the sea for as long as I can remember. Regardless of trying to imagine the logistics for the impacted sea-creatures when the sea split, imagining any large body of water splitting in half to reveal soil dry enough to walk on is very powerful.

To make this collage, I used Canva and tried to match the teals and blues to what I imagined the sea might have looked like. This collage was also an experiment for me artistically. Generally, I’ve built up the reputation to use any opportunity to use Canva yet to this point I’d never made such an elaborate artistic piece on the platform. The bright spot in the center of the image, while the pshat is that it is the sun, the midrash could be the sheer brightness of the future of the Jewish people shining between the waters when the sea split.

About Liora

Liora Finkel is from Montville, New Jersey, and graduated from Muhlenberg College in May 2022 with a degree in Religion Studies. In her senior year, Liora combined her academic passions of Near Eastern Studies and Gender Studies by completing a senior honors thesis on polytheistic practices among Middle Eastern women. At Pardes, Liora participates in the 2022-2023 Pardes Experiential Educators Program. After Pardes, beginning September 2023, Liora will continue her studies at JTS at the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education, working toward a master's degree in Jewish education.

Splitting of the Sea

By Liora Finkel

Viola Sonata "Geula"

I: Shi'bud Isaac Gantwerk Mayer

Shi'bud

By Isaac Gantwerk Mayer

דובעש (bondage)

This is the first movement of a longerterm project, a four-movement viola sonata meant to tell the story of the Exodus narrative through the lens of music. Specifically, what is included here is the first movement, "Shi'bud," reflecting the experience of slavery. The piece is introduced with a heavily accented "scream" motif near the very top of the viola's range, before speeding up into an anxious fastpaced minor work march for the primary theme of the piece. This continues until abruptly breaking into the secondary theme, a sweetly flowing "waters motif." In the process of going through the stages of a normative sonata form (exposition, development, recapitulation), the water theme inevitably returns, but tinged with an air of menace that leads right back into the scream of the introduction — this time reflecting the murder of the children of the Israelites. Then it transitions into an uncertain and unsteady major triad in a totally unrelated key. Woven throughout the movement is a repeated descending motif, on account of the rabbinic notion that Israel descended both literally and figuratively when in Egypt. Later movements will continue the story. The second movement will be in minuet form and reflect Moses's childhood and life before returning to Egypt. The third movement will be a theme with ten variations (one for each plague) concluding with a reference to the original scream motif. And the final movement will be a celebratory rondo reflecting the dancing at the shore of the sea.

About Isaac

From a family of musicians, Isaac Gantwerk Mayer (PEP Cohort 22) believes that creative art is one of the most powerful ways to get in touch with the Divine. He composes music and poetry in Hebrew and English.

To listen to Isaac's music, scan the QR code here:

What Does it Mean to “Know God?”: A Neo-Hasidic Reading of the Plague of Blood

By Jonah Gelfand

It wouldn’t be a seder without recounting the ten plagues. As we dip our pinkies into the wine, we list off dam (blood), tzfardeiya (frogs), kinim (lice), etc.

But what is the actual purpose of these plagues?

Many of us assume that they are simply attempts to force Pharoah to “let My people go.” (Ex 5:1) And perhaps they are. But if we look into the rationale given in the Torah, we learn that God originally sent the plagues to make it so that Pharaoh “knows that there is no one like Me in all the universe.” (Ex 9.14) They are not first-and–foremost arguments toward the Israelites’ release, but evidence of the Divine.

But what does it actually mean to know (te’da) God? We learn from the Hasidic leader, Rebbe Menahem Nahum of Chernobyl that knowledge (da’at) is representative of a spiritual awareness, an expanded consciousness. R. Nahum teaches that not only does God use Torah to create the world, but that the presence of the Creator remains in the created. This is to say that the Divine does not exist separate from our world but is present in all that exists.1 Hasidut teaches us that obtaining this consciousness is the purpose of our lives.

Furthermore, R. Nahum understands that

1 Me’or Enayim, breishit 1

2 Me’or Enayim, vayera 1.

3 Bava Kama 82a

the exile in Egypt was — at its spiritual core — an exile of this knowledge (da’at). If that awareness was cultivated (i.e., brought back out of exile), the world would be seen to be brimming with Divinity.2

Thus to “know God” is to be tuned into the imminent Godliness that permeates all reality. Is this the kind of knowledge that God wanted Pharaoh to obtain? And if so, what do we see as God’s first attempt to “wake him up”?: the plague of blood.

In the narrative of the story, Moses brought about this plague by striking the Nile, after which it all turned to blood. (Ex. 7:20) Here too, the rationale given by God is that “By this you shall know (te’da) that I am the Lord.” (Ex. 7:17)

But how is the plague of blood an attempt to raise Pharoah to the knowledge of God?

The answer lies in its two components: water (mayim) and blood (dam).

In the Talmud, we learn that “water” is Torah. It is that flowing mayim hayim — “living water” — that is ever sustaining the world.3 Since we already learned from R. Nahum that God is present in all of Creation through Torah , “water consciousness” in our discussion is the constant awareness of the radically immanent presence of God. To interact with the world through water

consciousness is to see through the multiplicity of the world and to find beneath it the One — the divine hiyyut (Lifeforce) that flows through all things. The mystics teach us that God is One and all is contained in that one, but when we look out on the world, we do not see that. We see separate entities which are seemingly unrelated to one another.

The Baal Shem Tov says of this multiplicity that “If you know the blessed Holy One is hiding, then God is not truly hidden.”4 If we know that God is manifesting in all these diverse forms, then we see God in all things. And this is the way of the tzaddikim — the holy beings — who are able to see the Divine in the mundane. For them, the world is bubbling over with Divinity.

But what about the average person? What about me? How am I to know God? And if this knowledge (da’at) is the purpose of our Creation, why do we not automatically experience the world as shimmering with holiness? Why are we created such that our baseline disposition is to see the world as mundane?

The answer from our tradition is that this awareness was taken from us.

Initially, it seems strange that the first thing God does in Sefer Shemot to bring Pharoah (or maybe us?) into knowledge of

4 Toledot Yaakov Yosef, breishit 1a

5 Niddah 30b

God — i.e., the first plague — is to turn the water into blood. [Exodus 7:20] Isn’t this counterintuitive? Wouldn’t God want us to be able to see the water more clearly and not change it into something else? What are we to learn from this?

This only starts to make more sense when we hold it next to the Talmud’s teaching that we learn the whole Torah in utero but are made to forget it as soon as we are born.5 In fact, we know that the amniotic fluid is composed mostly of water and so (in our proposed framework), fetuses are sustained by Torah! Our original creation thus contained within it this knowledge: all of Torah was known to us. But we lose it with our first breath of air out of the womb; when we are made “flesh and blood.”

One might say that once we are incarnated into bodies with thoughts and needs and desires, we are distracted from the reality of ever-present Divinity. We are brought from the prenatal expanded consciousness of “water” into the embodied, constricted consciousness of “blood.”

What are we to make of this? Why does God take this from us?

The answer is to be found in the Hasidic principle of avodah b’gashmiut, or service in physicality.6 We were not created as pure spiritual energy (like angels) but as

6 See Noam Elimelekh on va-yashev and Degel Macheneh Ephraim on Ki Tissa and elsewhere

embodied creatures. And it is in fact precisely through our embodiment that we are to serve — a— and thus “know”— God. The gashmiut — physicality — of this world, is “blood consciousness.” If one were to see it merely as physical, it would be a mundane thing indeed.

But far from scorning the materiality of “blood consciousness” and attempting to transcend it into pure “water consciousness,” our tradition teaches us to value our embodiment. When used appropriately, materiality is the life-giving substance that flows through our veins. Our blood is actually our mayim hayim — “living water.” Without it, we wouldn’t survive.

One, who is the cosmic aleph (a), one becomes adam (a complete person).”

7 To understand this, we must understand that Hebrew letters have numerical value — aleph is 1, bet is 2, etc — and that the mystics have understood aleph to be referring to the only true and original One: God. Visually, this teaching from the Maggid can thus be written as:

person = ם+ד and God= א

It is precisely through dam that we can interact with God. Perhaps this is what is meant when God says kol dimei ahikha tzo’akim — “the blood of your brother cries out to me.” 8[Gen. 4:10] Our blood is what enables us to tzo’ak — “cry out” — to God.

Therefore we see that it is not by transcending the physical world that we find our liberation. Rather it is through interacting with the physical world through the correct consciousness — by merging the blood and water. It is not that we are stuck either in water or blood consciousness, but we are a combination of both physical and spiritual awareness.

Baal Shem Tov reframes hiyyo to refer not to the “living things” (i.e., the angels) but instead to Lifeforce itself. And this Lifeforce is constantly growing and shrinking; shifting between different levels of consciousness.9 One cannot stay in water consciousness forever but must constantly shift between the two, understanding that both, water and blood, are required.

And this complication of the blood/water binary is true in the plagues themselves! God changes the water into blood not to block the Israelites from knowing God, but to present the physicality which blood represents as the vehicle through which the nation would know God! In the end it is specifically through blood that the Israelites find their liberation: the blood on their doorposts which spared their firstborn on the eve of the Exodus.10 (Ex 12.22) Similarly, today if we use our physicality with mindfulness of its underlying holiness, we are that much closer to “knowing God” in our lives.

And this is why God says that it is in the blood (i.e., our physicality) that the nefesh — “soul/life” — is found. [Lev. 17.14]

About Jonah

Jonah (he/him) is in the Year Program at Pardes and is the Jewish Spirituality Fellow. He co-founded and is co-editor of the online publication, Gashmius Magazine: Towards a Progressive neo-Hasidism. He got his Masters in Jewish Studies from the Graduate Theological Union, where his research focused on Hasidism and neo-Hasidic leadership.

The Maggid continues by teaching that “when one connects themself with the Holy

7 Maggid Devarav le-Ya’akov, be ha’alotekha.

This idea is encapsulated in how the Baal Shem Tov understood the line ha-hiyyot ratzo v’shov in Ezekiel 1:14. Narratively, this referred to Ezekial viewing the angels in heaven and remarking that the “living things were running and returning.” But the

8 Thank you to my wonderful havruta, Adira Rosen, for pointing out this connection to me.

9 Keter Shem Tov 1:24:2

10 Thank you to Louie Zweig for pointing this out to me.

Between Poland and Jerusalem: An Exodus

By Yitzi Gittelsohn

These poems emerged from my time spent in Poland with Pardes friends and mentors. I wrote one on each day of the five-day journey, ending with the sixth day on which we arrived back in Jerusalem. The reflections wrestle with and mourn the Holocaust sites we visited, celebrate and explore my ancestral connection to the land, and try to locate beauty amidst a dark past. As I entered and then left the places where our ancestors were enslaved and murdered, I felt as if I were descending into and then arising from Mitzrayim. I made my way back to the Promised Land, both literally and figuratively: literally by returning to Jerusalem, and figuratively by uncovering beauty and connection within a haunted land and past.

For the first time

Day 2 - Grounding (Rocks at Treblinka)

The rocks were really heavy They must have been really heavy to move, All those rocks, Together, For the monument.

The lives must have been even heavier, They must have been really heavy to move, All those lives, Together, To kill.

But they were wrong: They made the world so much heavier, Because the lives that were lost too soon, The millions of lives, Sit on the ground like heavy rocks, Boulders, And now the world has to hold them, Forever, So the world is heavier, And so are their hearts, And so are our hearts.

To our rightful place In the world to come.

Now every moment is a gift, Every moment they don’t take from us, In the fear that it will make their lives intolerable, And we get to live now, A heavy life.

Day 1 - Landing (In Ancestral Land)

Landed in Warsaw

Got in a packed bus

Got out at Chopin Airport

My favorite composer to play Growing up

On the plane

Sank beneath the clouds

And saw flat brown fields stretching on forever

And thought

This is where my ancestors lived?

And wondered if I should Say a blessing

Upon seeing my ancestral land

I don’t think that they didn’t care About us,

I think that they cared too much, I think we were really heavy for them, Too heavy,

And they wanted to cut us out Like a tumor.

They couldn’t handle the heaviness of their own life, Of the world, So they tried to lighten it, lighten it, lighten it By burning the heaviness away.

But standing amidst the heavy rocks, In the center of them, With a friend, And my people, I felt the lives that had been lost there All sitting around me, Deeply rooted in the earth, And I felt a lightness Ascending upward, For coming together In our heaviness, We somehow become light.

When we cut away the heaviness, And try to burn it to the heavens, We only become heavier.

When we come together in our heaviness, We become lighter, And rise naturally, with those who came before and after us

No need to cut things out of it, No need to cut it down, No need to kill, The earth that holds so many boulders Can hold so many lives.

And we can just let go, A little bit in each moment, With each exhale, Each connection, We become Just a little Lighter.

All those people killed, All our ancestors, Should not just be remembered for being killed, They should be remembered For the moments they didn’t take life Or each other For granted, For the moments when they recognized How heavy this life was For it could be snatched away,

Day 3 - Remembering (Great Great Grandma)

I just discovered

I am in the region

That my grandpa’s grandma is from In Galicia, Poland

Bertha Einhorn

I felt a rush of joy

At the timely discovery

That I am in an ancestral homeland

For real this time

I didn’t know I had anyone from Poland

And I found out while I’m here

Thanks to my Great Uncle Joel

One of the last of his generation I’m connected to

She was a single mother

With nine kids

She came to America with nine kids

And no husband

And no money

Her husband Isaac was killed in World War

I

Because of which the rest of them evaded the Shoah

If he hadn’t been killed

That ancestor with my name

Would they have stayed

And been killed, all of them

Including my Great Grandma Mildred

In a death camp

Like the one I saw today?

Great Grandma Mildred was 5 when Isaac died around 1920

She would have been 17 in 1942

The year when most Polish Jews Were killed

Would she have been sent to Majdanek

The concentration camp I visited today

A camp where many Jews from Galicia would have been sent?

If she was 17, and they needed labor

She might not have been sent to the gas chambers

Right away

She might have walked

Through the cold blowing rain

From the barracks to the crematorium

As I did today

Though she would not have had warm clothes

And she would not have had a comfortable bus to drive her away

And she would not have been going to remember a horrific past event

She would have been a part of it

And going to help shovel the ashes

Of her own people

And she might have stepped outside the crematorium

As the rain turned to softly falling snow

And been comforted for a moment

And been comforted for a moment

Imagining a life in which she was never sent to the Majdanek camp

Because she had gone

With her mother and eight siblings

Years earlier

To join their family in America

In New Jersey

Where she was safe

And could find a nice Jewish boy to marry

And have two nice Jewish boys with Don and Joel

Who would have their own families

Who would have their own

One of them

Being me

I’m from the world where that happened

Because Isaac died in World War I, not World War II

Funny how bad things lead to good things sometimes

And what is incomprehensible is how many Jews must have imagined or yearned for, in their imprisonment, the freedom to have children, or grandchildren, or great great grandchildren

And how, for them, that flame was extinguished so quickly, for so many

I am the miraculous continuation of Bertha’s, of Gertrude’s, of Don’s, of Ellen’s flame. So many miracles had to happen for me to speak these words

To you.

Day 4 - Softening (In the Forest)

I started to learn how to soften today

Not needing to expect myself to feel the most intensity

At the sites of mass graves

Of mass murders

We went into the forest

The Polish forest

And I allowed myself to smell the crispness of the air

To see the wisdom of the tall trees

To feel the grounding of the earth

While I honored the lives lost there All around me

Was the unavoidable truth that life had persisted

That life is always persisting

Nature continues on

And I felt more connected to this nature

Knowing that my great great grandmother Bertha

And my great great grandfather Isaac

Knew this nature too

Maybe those same woods

For they were a farming family

Here in Galicia, Poland

And they knew the earth, the trees, and the air

Like family

And like family they had to tear themselves away

Whether in the death of war

Or the pain of immigration

And like family I have returned

Many generations later

In a sort of homecoming

And I will have to tear myself away as well

But I’m grateful for this glimpse of home

Even if that home is a grave to so many

It will live forever in my heart

Day 5 - Releasing (At Auschwitz)

At Auschwitz, at the end of the day

We held our memorial rocks

And sang ‘Eli, Eli, Oh Lord, My God

I pray that these things never end

The sand and the sea

The rush of the waters

The crash of the heavens

The prayer of the heart’

And I felt a release

Of much heaviness

That built up over 5 days

That built up over a day of being in a place

Where 1.1 million people

1 million of my people

Were murdered

So efficiently

The scale is too large to imagine, to hold

And I found myself humming the song

‘Loosen, loosen baby, you don’t have to carry the weight of the world in your muscles and bones, let go, let go, let go’

And sitting in that circle with our rocks, praying for the continuation of life

I let go

And let my community hold the weight

And let the land hold the weight of the world

The land that my ancestors farmed and knew intimately

‘I don’t have to hold the weight of this history’, I thought to myself

As we walked outside into the softly falling snow and the fading afternoon light

I walked slowly

Meandering

Letting my mind loosen

Something the prisoners did not have the luxury to do

There is a horror and a harshness and an evil to this place that has held unfathomable death and suffering

A coldness to knowing that a people went to such great lengths to cut away your people

Like a tumor

From the face of this earth

What caused such a strong desire

In their hearts

To be so distant from us as to erase our bodies from the earth?

Maybe

They were trying to hold the entire weight of the world

In their muscles and bones

And feeling that weight

Wanted to remove

Like a surgery

What they saw as bad weight

By doing so, they only added weight to the world

Endless heaps of bodies and trauma

We all must hold

If they only remembered that the world can hold all of us, together

All our beauties and flaws

And that they did not have to bear the weight on their own shoulders

They might not have needed to invent that evil operation

In a vain attempt at annihilation

They might not have needed to harden their hearts

Seeking protection from their own fear of annihilation

Of losing the power of gods

Like Pharaoh

Fearing the loss of his kingship, his godship

Fearing that indeed there was a god more powerful than him

To let go of our fear of loss of power

Is to let life live

Is to let our emotions, our thoughts live

Is to let our friends live

Is to let an entire people live

Let people go, let the wild happenings of life ride their wild journeys

Let yourself be its own mysterious unfolding self

And let god be in control

If we truly did that

We could walk out of Auschwitz

80 years later

Taste the fresh snow on our tongue

And feel a moment of peace

In what was hell on earth

We have gone down to Egypt

We have escaped and survived

We have returned

And we have made the narrow place wide open space

We have brought death back to life

We have turned hatred into love

We have turned separation back into connection

Auschwitz has been an Egypt

Perhaps the worst in our people’s history

It can also be an Eden

For the trees there are still holy

The snow is still sweet

And the ground can hold us

Like a loving mother’s warm embrace

Keeping her child safe

After a terrible, terrible nightmare

Who sings a lullaby as he falls back to to sleep:

‘Loosen, loosen baby, you don’t have to carry the weight of the world in your muscles and bones, let go, let go, let go’.

Day 6 - Resurrecting (Valley of the Ghosts)

I woke up to the sound of children playing

In Jerusalem

I walked down the street

Busy with shoppers before Shabbos

I thought to myself, ‘All these people

Survived The Final Solution’

They all survived Miraculously

In each passerby’s face

I saw one of the portraits of prisoners at Auschwitz

In the children passing me by With their abundant energy

I saw the pictures of children getting off the train at Auschwitz

Holding each other’s hands

Being held by their mothers and grandmothers

Those lost souls

Have come back to life on this bustling modern Jerusalem street

On Emek Refaim:

“Valley of the Ghosts”

This is the valley of the ghosts

We were all supposed to be dead

They wanted us dead

We have been revived

M’chayei ha’meitim

In this moment,

I understand why this place is so precious to so many Jews

How could you not feel

After having descended to Auschwitz

And then risen to Jerusalem

That you have made it from Egypt

To the Promised Land?

About Yitzi

Yitzi, currently in the Pardes Year Program, is a singer-songwriter, poet, and budding spiritual leader from Vermont. Check out his soundcloud at https://on.soundcloud.com/Eqi82SkyAih9FxJo9

Coming Out of Egypt

By Julia Gluck

I’m coming out of Egypt. The waters parted, I walked on dry land, Solid beneath my feet, the soles of which Had finally let go the last of my Egypt.

I’m coming out of Egypt: the narrow place In which I had confined myself, Resisting with all I knew The disease which has taken My husband from me.

I’m coming out of Egypt, That narrow place was dark, Heavy with anger, resentment and guilt, Emotions which claimed me for their own.

I’m coming out of Egypt, And it matters not how my heart softened. I know that now.

It matters not how my mind stilled its chatter Nor how my body became suffused with calm.

I’ve come out of Egypt. I’ve had a revelation.

I’m in the promised land.

My husband Ted was a poster boy for Parkinson’s Disease from October 2006 until June 2019. In early 2020, he was diagnosed with Lewy-Body Dementia. I had two weeks of respite shortly afterward which allowed me to come to terms with the growing likelihood that we didn’t have much more time together. He died October 19, 2020. The specific pasuk which inspired me to write this poem was in Beshalach, 14:30:

םירצמ דימ לארשי תא אוהה םויב םשה עשויו That was just after I came back from the respite break.

About Julia

Julia Gluck lives in Toronto. She attended Hillel Academy in Ottawa for her elementary education. Her BA in Judaic Studies is from the University of Toronto and her third year was at Hebrew University. She attends a small traditional egalitarian synagogue in downtown Toronto. She and her late husband Ted attended many classes at Pardes when they started spending part of their winters in Jerusalem in 2010 and she has been taking an online Pardes course with Rahel Berkovits on Talmud for the last three years.

The First Defiant Women

By Rachel Harris

My Jewish transformation has been several years in the making. Coming from a background which did not prioritise Jewish learning or community leadership for women, I first discovered Talmud while attending Limmud Conference in the UK. I later changed practice from traditional Orthodox to attending a Partnership Minyan, finally starting to appreciate a synagogue service, learning to accept an aliyah, and learning to leyn Torah. Shemot 1, psukim 15-22, telling the story of the midwives Shifra and Puah, is the first section I learned to leyn in Torah whilst studying at Pardes. I took what sometimes feels like an alternative path, a little later in life than is conventional. Therefore, I was curious to learn more about these women, who pushed against authority, refused what didn’t feel right, and followed their conscience.

The psukim highlight their bravery, refusing Pharoah’s order to slaughter the Hebrew baby boys as they were born. Jonathan Sacks discusses the midwives’ actions as the first recorded incidence of civil disobedience, disobeying authority due to “fear of God.”1 When placed in this situation, Shifra and Puah had a choice. Faced with conflict between the laws of God and the laws of Pharaoh, the midwives chose God.

to live. (Exodus 1:17)

It should be noted that Pharaoh had allowed the girls to live, as it was believed that it was unlikely they would rise up and fight against Egypt. Of course, it was actually the women who saved the male children, including Moshe, who later became deliverer of the Jewish people. They were able to do this by tricking Pharoah, claiming that the Hebrew women had already given birth by the time they got there:

Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are skilled as midwives; when the midwife has not yet come to them, they have [already] given birth. (Exodus 1:19)

By some miracle (perhaps the actions of God), Pharaoh believed them, and their heroic actions were recognised and rewarded.

: God benefited the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very strong. (Exodus 1:20)

and Puah (העופ), is debated amongst the commentators. The Talmud identifies them as Yoheved and Miriam, Moshe’s mother and sister, this relationship fitting the tradition of skills of midwifery being passed down from mother to daughter.2 Midwifery was an exclusively female profession, one of few open to women, and a prestigious profession in ancient Egypt. Commentators suggest that these two may have been overseers of the profession, or the names were in fact not of individuals, but of the guilds of midwives3 which would have explained their significant influence on what transpired. The Gemara similarly provides various ideas for Puah’s name; one is that she made comforting sounds to women as the child would emerge (po’a). Another interpretation is that the name comes from a verb describing speaking, suggesting she was a prophetess, saying, “In the future, my mother will give birth to a son who will save the Jewish people.”4

There is substantial midrash on the names. This makes sense, given this story takes place at the start of Shemot, which means “names,” and there is much to say on the significance of a name being included or omitted in the text.

Agaddic commentaries suggest that Shifra is Yoheved, the name הרפש coming from the word תרפשמ, meaning “improves,” indicating that she tended to the newborn to make him presentable. Another interpretation is that the name came

2 BT. Sotah 11b

from וברו ורפש, meaning “that they procreated,” as in the Israelites procreated due to her.5 There is midrash that Puah’s name came from the fact she was insolent םינפ העיפוה; she looked towards Pharoah and looked down her nose at him.6

It is notable that the names of midwives are recorded but not those of the reigning pharaohs.

These non-royal champions of morality assume far greater historic importance than the all-powerful tyrants who reigned Israel.7 Torah Scholar

Judy Klitsner points out the names Shifra הרפש and Puah העופ contain the same letters as Pharaoh הערפ indicating they are positioned as sub-

versive equals in the story. Indeed, they have names (out of so few women in the Humash), whereas Pharoah is reduced to his title only. After the midwives directly disobey Pharaoh, he does not kill them; perhaps Pharaoh was cowed by the midwives’ moral authority.8

R. Samson Raphael Hirsch writes that not only did they contradict Pharoah’s orders to kill the babies, but did everything possible to keep the babies alive, such as providing them with food. Indeed, they were extra zealous in the opposite direction, so no suspicion should be attached to them, ensuring that they had not done something or omitted something, by which the child’s life could be endangered. Rather, they did everything possible in their work and in prayer to God that all babies were born healthy, and no

The midwives, however, feared God; so they did not do as the king of Egypt had spoken to them, but they enabled the boys

He made houses for them. (Exodus 1:21)

The identities of the midwives, Shifra (הרפש)

1 Sacks, Jonathan. “On not Obeying Immoral Orders.” Covenant and Conversation.

3 The Commentators’ Bible, Exodus, The Rubin JPS Miqra’ot Gedolot. Ed, trans & annotated by Michael Carasik, p. 6.

4 BT. Sotah 11b

5 Kohelet Rabbah 7:1:3

6 Shemot Rabbah 1:13

7 The JPS Torah Commentary- Exodus, Commentary by Nahum M. Sarna. The Jewish Publication Society, 1991, p. 7.

8 Klitsner, Judy, “The Tower of Babel & the Midwives of Egypt.” Pardes Winter Intensive, January 2023.

God that all babies were born healthy, and no child would come into the world with any hurt.9

The Talmud suggests that the midwives also took further risks in rejecting Pharoah sexually: “The midwives, fearing G-d, did not do as the king of Egypt had told them.”

The word “to them” ןהילא is often used to refer to sexual intercourse. The Gemara states that Pharoah propositioned them, but they rejected him, which required immense bravery. Puah told him, “Woe to you on the day of judgement when God will come to demand punishment of you.” On hearing this, Pharaoh became enraged and wanted to kill her. However, Shifra beautified her daughter’s words to Pharaoh and mollified him and said to him, “Do you take notice of her? She is a baby andknows nothing.”10

Working together, the midwives were able to avoid Pharoah’s anger after resisting his advances.

Another midrash stated that Miriam was called Puah for her insolence, directed against her father Amram. When Pharaoh ordered the Israelite boys to be cast into the Nile, he stated, “Shall an Israelite lie with his wife for nothing?” He separated from Yoheved and divorced her. Amram was the head of the Sanhedrin at the time, so others followed him. Miriam who was

called Puah said, "Your decree is harsher than Pharoah. He only decreed against the males, you decree against both. Doubtful if Pharaoh's decree will come to pass, but you are righteous so your decree will be fulfilled.” He took back his wife, and others followed his lead.11 In terms of their reward,

it is written that God made “houses for

them” םיּתִּֽבָ םהֶלָ שׂעַַּי . The Gemara says the “midwives’ houses” that were established refer to the houses of the Cohanim and the Levim i.e. Aaron and Moshe, descended from Yoheved. An alternative suggestion is that they may be the houses of royalty, referring to David, who came from Miriam.12

These great legacies suggest that the text fully acknowledges the significance of their actions, and God’s approval of them.

Shifra and Puah’s actions demonstrate the deep impact of bravery and resistance. We must recognize when it is right to reject the direction or perceived wisdom of those with more authority, and develop our ability to do so.13 I compare the midwives’ resistance to authority to the relatively recent ascent by Orthodox Jewish women to equal learning and leadership in Judaism. This includes women’s Talmud study, their development of Partnership Minyanim, and their ordination as rabbis. Pushing open the door to Jewish learning and practise a little further takes bravery. I can attest that handling sacred texts for the first time is exciting,

9 Hirsch, Samson Raphael. The Pentateuch, Vol. II Exodus, Trans. Isaac Levy, London 1956, p. 11

10 Shemot Rabbah 1:13

11 Shemot Rabbah 1:13

12 BT. Sotah, 11b

but also confusing and frightening, when access has been restrained for so long. This defiance may not compare to the bravery of the midwives, but over time, may eventually tip the scale of how Jewish orthodoxy is practiced, and in turn, determine the future of the Jewish people.

About Rachel

Rachel is a Global Leadership Fellow on the Pardes Year Programme, taking a year out from her life in London, where she works as an HR professional. At home, she is a volunteer and trustee of the Borehamwood Partnership Minyan. She is using her time at Pardes to increase her Hebrew skills and knowledge of Jewish practice in order to support her community and for her own personal development.

13 On a similar theme, Midrash Tanhuma, Pekudei 9 writes that the daughters of Israel would use mirrors to seduce their husbands whilst they were slaves in Egypt, ensuring that they would continue to have children.

Again, these are further examples of women undermining authority to do what they believe is right, ensuring that Israelite babies continue to be born, and benefit the future of the Jewish people. (Fine, Gila, Lecture, “The Art of Rabbinic Storytelling: Narcissus in the Temple.” Pardes Winter Intensive, January 2023.)

Redemption at the Red Sea

By Mindy Hirsch

"Then Moses held out his arm over the sea and God drove back the sea with a strong east wind all that night, and turned the sea into dry ground. The waters were split,

and the Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left" (Exodus 14:21).

Artist Statement

Picture it: April 2020, we have been isolating for at least a month at this point. Everybody in their own place. Zoom is a new phenomenon. It becomes clear very quickly that we will remain alone for Pesach. This was very upsetting to me. Jews gather, it is what we do! I felt frustrated.

I turned to painting. When I paint, I use acrylic paints; they are thick and have a good texture beneath my hands. I do not use a brush, but instead use a piece of silicone to push and spread the paint across the canvas. I feel like I have the ability to bend each brush stroke.

The title of this painting is Redemption at the Red Sea. I worked to pick and blend the colors to try and accurately reflect the differences in colors we see in our waters. While still frustrated I was alone, I was finding a connection to my ancestors, the Jews before me that struggled. Yes, not all struggles are the same, but there was a comfort in finally feeling that I was not alone.

In the end, I hosted a Zoom seder that 47 people attended. I was not the only person looking for community that year. Even though we weren’t physically together, it was gathering.

About Hirsch

From a queer family, Mindy Hirsch (PEP ‘23) believes art is therapeutic and that the process is just as important as the product. Always a self-starter, Hirsch began leading Pesach seders at eight years old. Hirsch highly recommends the version of Exodus by Bob Marley and Chineke! Orchestra.

Sanctification

By Sophie Libow

Every Friday afternoon is a hurried frenzy. Plata plugged, Table set, Directions drawn. It will have to be what it will be. Nothing in the natural world corresponds to my candle lighting no special moon no special season It matters only because we Say it does.

Only because

We choose to live in cycles of sacred and mundane kodesh and hol

Of rest and work

Menucha, melacha

Over and over and over again.

Fixing time is for the free. Choice, scheduling- it’s all mastery.

Pharoah’s calendar

was enslaving was oppressive

Time wasn’t ours. God said We are starting over This is the beginning This is the first month of every year afterwards Nissan comes in the Spring.

I imagine what it must have been like to stand at the sea Water ahead, chariots behind And to say: this is the beginning of time.

About Sophie

Sophie Libow comes to Pardes for the Year Program after graduating from Washington University in St. Louis with a degree in Environmental Studies. On campus, she was a committed Jewish organizer, facilitating the weekly egalitarian minyan and founding the community newsletter, The Shtick. This is Sophie’s first time being engrossed in serious Torah study and she loves the way it challenges, excites, and exhausts her. Sophie is a writer with her online Substack called exclamation!, where she writes about all things personal, reflective, and, of course, Jewish.

Three Months from Egypt

By Yehudit Reishtein

In honor of the generations of women whose strength and faith have sustained the Jewish people throughout history

It's the waiting that's hard. The waiting and the heat.

It was hot in Egypt too, ghastly hot, with no relief because we were working, always working. Making bricks, building, out in the open, with the sun beating down, not a bit of shade, nowhere to sit. Even if you were lucky enough to find a spot in the shadow of a building, one of the overseers would be on you, chasing you back out into the heat. The only relief was at night, when it would cool off. If it got cold, which it did even in the dry season, we were too exhausted to do anything but sleep. Or beyond exhaustion, we would lie there, shivering, just waiting for the morning when it would start all over again.

The desert here is different, yet somehow the same. The heat is unrelenting, except at night when it is cold. When Hashem spoke to us, it was overwhelming. The shofars sounded louder and louder, and when you thought they were as loud as they could be, they became louder still. And the lightning and thunder—it was as if we could see His words, as if they were being burned into our eyes. I'm told He said ten things. I heard only one, maybe two. I'm still not sure. We were all so crowded at the foot of the mountain, it was hard to breathe. Whenever I ask anyone about that day, it's always the same. It was terrifying, hot, and crowded. They know Hashem said ten

things because that's what Moshe reported He said, but they heard one or two, or at the most, three things. He took us out of Egypt, we should not have other Gods...and what else?

Moshe knows, but he went back up on that terrible and frightening mountain and disappeared. It's been almost six weeks, and where is he? For all we know, he could have starved to death. Nothing grows up there, and he did not take any food or water with him. He could have climbed up to the top—to listen to Hashem, he said—and gone right down the other side and back to Egypt. He could be sitting by the Nile now, eating cucumbers and onions and watermelon in the shade of a fig tree, while we sit out here in this wretched desert, parched and frightened.

Yes, his God showed us many wonders before taking us out of slavery, but what has He done since He drowned Pharaoh’s army? Other than send us manna, that is? He's left us to sit out under the merciless sun in the oppressive heat.

We do have water, from a well. Some of the women have started calling it “Miriam’s Well.” No matter how early I go, Miriam has already been there to draw water for her family. Even if there is already a line, we let her be the first. When she discovered this well, we worried that with so many people needing water, it would soon go dry.

Then someone pointed out that Miriam had also discovered wells at our other camps, at the overnight stops where we didn’t even take the time to erect our tents, but just slept out on the sand.

Work would be a welcome distraction, almost any work, even making bricks. Instead we sit here, day after day after day. The lack of attention from Moshe's God is getting on everyone's nerves. People are starting to snap at each other and get angry over little nothings, because no one has anything worth getting angry about. Some of the outsiders who left Egypt with us, the ones who are not of our families, are talking about finding a new god, or making one, that will pay attention to us, give us some relief from this endless heat, bring us some good food instead of the boring manna, some shade, some token of caring.

I tell Yitzchak, my husband, to stay away from them. Nothing good ever came from mixing with that crowd. We're B’nai Yisrael, more sensible stock. I tell him he should know his place, and take care of his own, not grab someone else's troubles.

But he says that at least they're trying to do something. Moshe's abandoned us, Aaron is powerless, and Hashem is silent. "The outsiders have a plan," Yitzhak tells me. "Anything would be better than just sitting here, waiting."

"And for what?" he yells at me. He never yelled at me before, not even when I was so exhausted I couldn't pour water into his brick mixture without spilling half of it onto the sand. His face is red and unrecognizable. I am shocked—who is this man? After so many years and so much suffering, I thought I knew him. But now I don't.

Tonight he said the men were gathering all the gold we brought from Egypt. They were going to get Aaron to make them a god. I refused to give him my rings and earrings. I didn’t simply refuse, I screamed at him.

I yelled that he had no right to take my jewelry, he had done nothing to get it. He had slunk into our hut that evening and would not look at me. I finally got him to admit that he had not even knocked on an Egyptian door. Yitzchak said he was a slave and the Egyptians would slam their door in his face, probably after beating him first.

So it had been me. I was the one who discovered my courage and wrapped myself in it as if it were a blanket. I had gone to the Egyptian woman and asked her for jewelry. She gave me her jewelry box and even took off the rings and earrings she was wearing—she could not give them to me fast enough. She only wanted Moshe and his angry God to leave them alone. She actually cowered in front of me!

And now Yitzchak wants me to give him my gold to make a new god? I'd sooner go back to making bricks. Yes, I would wear gold earrings and mix mud and straw. Now I know my true strength comes from Hashem, not from some gold statue that Aaron can make.

I ask him what did Aaron say, exactly? He smiles, because he knows more than I do, he knows a secret. Aaron said that if they want a new god, he will give them one, a calf, like the Egyptians have, golden. He will even make it for them. Aaron doesn't want anyone's help, he will do all the work himself, Yitzchak says.

"Aaron said he will make you a golden god?"

I feel myself starting to smile for the first time in weeks.

Yitzchak's smile turns to a smirk. "If we want a new god, Aaron told us, he will make us one, perfect, as a proper god should be made."

I don't believe Yitzchak. No matter how perfect a golden statue is, it cannot be my God, I tell him. And I can’t believe Aaron has requested my golden bracelets and rings and earrings. Aaron, the brother of Moshe, the one who faced Pharaoh and spoke Hashem’s words? He can’t be promising a better god.

I start to think about that. Moshe and Aaron—brothers, two of a kind. Neither one says much, and what he says, you need to listen to carefully. Every word counts.

Aaron told the men he would make a god for them. For them, not for himself, not for us. A god, not G-d. He says he will make it by himself, without any help. Help would make the work easier, make it go faster. How better to delay work than to do it all yourself, insisting on perfection at every step? Aaron must know something, something he's not telling the rest of us. Or perhaps his faith is just stronger than ours.

It doesn't matter to me at the moment. If Aaron does not believe in the golden god he is making, it is enough. But it will be made without my earrings.

Yitzchak runs out of the tent—I think he is more afraid of my smile than my anger. But he'll be back, demanding again.

I'm afraid, more afraid than when Hashem spoke in thunder and lightning from the mountain.

I pray to Him, to the one G-d who saved us from Egypt, to the One who commanded us to have no other gods before Him. Give me strength God, I say, guard my strength.

The heat is unbearable. It even hurts to breathe.

Moshe, hurry back.

Notes:

Dedication: Rabbi Avirah says “In the merit of the righteous women of that generation, Israel was redeemed from Egypt” (Masekhet Sotah: page 11a).

1. The shofar sound and synesthesia experienced during the revelation at Har Sinai: The blare of the horn (Hebrew: shofar) grew louder and louder. As Moses spoke, God answered him in thunder (Shemot 19:19). All the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the blare of the horn and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they fell back and stood at a distance (Shemot 20:15).

speaking: “You speak to us,” they said to

2. The people were afraid to hear God speaking: “You speak to us,” they said to Moses, “and we will obey; but let not God speak to us, lest we die” (Shemot 20:16). Rashi comments that we learn from the first two commandments being written in the first-person plural and the last eight in the singular...that God proclaimed the first two commandments to Israel and the last eight to Moses (Shemot 20:1).

3. The people ate cucumbers, melons, and onions in Egypt, and continued to long for them even after they had were eating the manna (B’midbar 11:5).

4. In recognition of Miriam’s watching Moshe in the Nile River and her praise of God after the crossing to the Sea of Reeds, as long as she lived a well traveled with Bnai Yisrael in the desert (Midrash, Bamidbar Rabbah 1:2).

5. Aaron asked “[You men,] take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me” (Shemot 32:2). Rashi says that Aaron thought because women and children love ornaments, they would hesitate to give them up, and in the meantime Moses might arrive. The men, however, did not wait until the women and children made up their minds but they took off their own earrings; there is no reference to the women’s earrings (Midrash Tanchuma Ki Tisa 21).

6. Asking the Egyptians for jewelry: [God said to Moshe] “Each woman shall borrow from her neighbor and the lodger in her house objects of silver and gold, and clothing, and you shall put these on your sons and daughters.” (Shemot 3:22)

“...Tell the people to borrow, each man from his neighbor and each woman from hers, objects of silver and gold.” (Shemot 11:2)

The Israelites had done Moses’ bidding and borrowed from the Egyptians objects of silver and gold, and clothing. And Hashem had

disposed the Egyptians favorably toward the people, and they let them have their request; thus they stripped the Egyptians (Shemot 12:3536).

7. Aaron and Moshe going together to confront Pharaoh, and Aaron telling Pharaoh what God has said: Hashem replied to Moses, “See, I place you in the role of God to Pharaoh, with your brother Aaron as your prophet. You shall repeat all that I command you, and your brother Aaron shall speak to Pharaoh to let the Israelites depart from his land…So Moses and Aaron came before Pharaoh and did just as Hashem had commanded” (Shemot 7:1-2, 10).

8. People gave Aaron their jewelry and Aaron made the Golden Calf by himself: “And all the people took off the gold rings that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. This he took from them and cast in a mold, and made it into a molten calf (Shemot 32:3-4).

About Yehudit

After many years working as a critical care nurse and nurse-educator, Yehudit Reishtein made aliyah to be closer to her family. She then began a second career as a life-long student at Pardes, primarily learning Torah and Gemara. In order to exorcise the ghosts that had accumulated in her mind, she began writing stories. "Three Months From Egypt" was written to pay tribute to the women whose strength and faith carried our people through slavery to redemption, through the desert into the land promised to our ancestors, and through all history to the present day.

Wandering in the Wilderness

By Emma Richter

a precariously-placed cactus, teetering over the edge, knocks over, and the needles come raining down.

a shabbos meal, which is a shiva, (whispers flood the room: “nisht shabbos gurecht”) strikes a painfully ochre, syrupy chord: listen.

the guests stuff their faces — as if the world is ending — and drink from merriment into oblivion;

dead tired bodies lay splayed across the couches,

the pale light illuminating tears, in mourning’s choreography:

no one knows what to do next.

when i get home, i unshackle myself as others cannot and fall into bed plagued by the knowledge that i have nowhere left to run.

These are some of my experiences with loss, fear, and panic from this year. You may notice how I reference in both the feeling of not knowing where to go next. I imagine this is how Jews have felt throughout Jewish history: stranded in the wilderness after leaving Egypt, emptiness and uncertainty stretched before them; after the destruction of the Second Temple and the loss of their home and religious practices; after the Second World War and the Holocaust, and the destruction of their communities of hundreds of years. A central part of my personal belief system is the home as a cornerstone as well-being: when you lose your home, whether it is physical, emotional, or intellectual, you experience a great loss. Through these poem I hope to convey the vastness of that loss, and its ability to unravel.

About Emma

Emma Richter graduated from CUNY Queens College with a BA in English. While there she completed an honors thesis in her major that utilized a nontraditional, creative argumentative structure in the shape of a honeycomb. At Pardes, she is the Rabbinic Literature Research Fellow, as well as the sole administrator of the acclaimed “pardes chat o’ whimsy,” for which she has much affection. She adores Wes Anderson movies, collecting vintage clothing, and slowly combing through her collection of 997 video games. In the fall of 2023, she will begin law school to fulfill her dream of becoming a housing lawyer.

The Next Dor...

By Adira Rosen

Josh Less photographed by Adira Rosen. The Negev. December 2022.

Yitzi Gittelsohn photographed by Adira Rosen. The Negev. December 2022.

Artist Statement

The next dor... A poetic-photographic exploration of peoplehood by Adira Rosen

"And I will take you to be My people, and I will be your God" (Exodus 6:7).

In every generation, we have wandered through the desert. When the time comes, we will exit this place in our own ways, continuing our individual journeys. But this community and the steps we took together through the desert, through the streets of Jerusalem, and through the halls of Pardes have shaped us as people and as a people in relationship with the Divine.

About Adira

Adira Rosen (she/her) is a Jewish theatre artist who strives to make Jewish spaces more theatrical and theatrical spaces more Jewish. She graduated from the John Wells Directing Program at Carnegie Mellon University, where she earned her BFA in Directing. Currently, Adira is a member of the 22-23 Pardes cohort of Experiential Educators (PEEP) and in the coming years, she hopes to pursue a career in the Rabbinate. For more information, visit www.adirarosen.com

Jonah Gelfand photographed by Adira Rosen. The Negev, December 2022.

BaMidbar רבדמב

By Kayla Schneider-Smith

Imagine: we wanted to go back to Egypt, uncomfortable with the infinity of desert between us –walking on the edge of the highway, imagining love without promise, without sustenance

face pressed against a rainy window

having said everything that could be said

having said nothing at all one foot in the desert one in the promised land, heart reinventing its most ancient practice

About Kayla

All the Israelites railed against Moses and Aaron. “If only we had died in the land of Egypt,” the whole community shouted at them, “or if only we might die in this wilderness!...It would be better for us to go back to Egypt!” And they said to one another, “Let us head back for Egypt" (Numbers 14:2-4).

Originally from New Jersey, Kayla received her MFA in Creative Writing, Poetry, from the University of San Francisco, where she worked as the first Jewish Resident Minister on campus and taught Intro to Creative Writing. Her poems and articles have appeared in The Jewish Writing Project, Invisible City, and Friends Journal, with another poem forthcoming in Minyan Magazine Kayla is currently an Arts & Culture Fellow at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem.

The Bush was Burning with the Fire of the Revolution

By Hanna Sedletsky

A foundational myth of Jewish origins, the Exodus is filled with primordial motifs and symbols that convey the message of liberation. In the ancient Near East, many economies were based on slave labor and a large section of the population were enslaved people whose stories of liberation predate the written language.1 Modern scholarship2 does not offer any substantial proof of the actual Exodus of Israelites happening, yet that does not exclude the possibility of some exodus happening on a smaller scale. In an Egyptian document from 20-19th century BCE, the Ipuwer Papyrus,3 we find a record of a group of slaves breaking free and running away after a major destructive seismic activity in the region. While the academic consensus is inconclusive4 on whether or not the Ipuwe papyrus describes events of our Exodus, the experience of enslavement was shared by many nations at the time. However, it was the Jewish tradition that preserved the ancient theme of liberation from enslavement and made it central to the Jewish origin narrative.

From a historical perspective, it is likely that this story was transformed over time, its scale was inflated and details were added to the core narrative. Much of the imagery and symbolism behind the Biblical Exodus reflect the primordial need of

enslaved people to seek justice and liberation from exploitation and suffering. The bush engulfed in flames that was not being consumed, which Moshe encountered in the wilderness, powerfully symbolizes the resilience of the people despite being subject to continuous oppression.

Throughout the Exodus story, God empathizes with the Israelites and opposes their abuse and exploitation. The Exodus itself is a radical revolutionary movement, and God is its leader. While the concept and character of God change throughout different periods of Jewish history, the liberatory and merciful aspect of God has persisted in the Jewish culture and textual tradition.

or the struggle of persisting in existence. At the same time, while we preserve the past, our orientation is to the Messianic future. According to Benjamin, Messianic cessation would be a cessation of the homogenous fabric of history, a revolutionary chance in the fight for the oppressed past. In other words, the Messianic age will reveal the hidden and forgotten history, and those whose stories fell victim to the brutally exclusionary process of historical preservation will be redeemed.

A messenger of Hashem appeared to him in a blazing fire out of a bush. He gazed, and there was a bush all aflame, yet the bush was not consumed (Exodus 3:2).

The burning bush represents the Israelites, or oppressed people in general, that suffer but are not destroyed.5 Moshe has no choice but to acknowledge the stark reality of human suffering, and the resilience of the Israelites empowers him to ignite a rebellion.

With the symbol of the burning bush, the Israelite God who leads people out of Egypt proclaims the ethics of freedom, justice, and opposition to tyranny and oppression.

And Hashem continued, “I have marked well the plight of My people in Egypt and

1 Mendelsohn, I. “Slavery in the Ancient Near East.” The Biblical Archaeologist 9, no. 4 (1946): 74–88.

2 Dozeman, Thomas B., Craig A. Evans, Joel N. Lohr, and Lester Grabbe. Essay. In The Book of Exodus: Composition, Reception, and Interpretation. Leiden: Brill, 2014.

3 Lichtheim, Miriam, and Antonio Loprieno. Ancient Egyptian Literature. I. Vol. I. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006.

4 Dozeman, ibid.

5 Sforno on Exodus 3:2; Shmot Rabbah 2:5.

Walter Benjamin, a Jewish German thinker of the 20th century expresses an anxiety about the process of recording history and victors’ abuse of it, in his work “Thesis on the Philosophy of History.”6 According to Benjamin, past events are fleeting and images of the past that are not deemed relevant to the present are under threat of being lost in the annals of history. Despite the monopoly of the victors on recording history, the struggling, oppressed class itself is the real depository of historical knowledge. Jewish history is a collection of stories of defiance, rebellion, and liberation, of the effort to exist, survive and transmit our stories. Since the Jewish tradition has always valued and prioritized communal survival, we exemplify the concept of conatus essendi, or the struggle of persisting in existence. At the same time, while we preserve the past, our orientation is to the Messianic future. According to Benjamin, past events are fleeting and images of the past that are not deemed relevant to the present are under threat of being lost in the annals of history. Despite the monopoly of the victors on recording history, the struggling, oppressed class itself is the real depository of historical knowledge. Jewish history is a collection of stories of defiance, rebellion, and liberation, of the effort to exist, survive and transmit our stories. Since the Jewish tradition has always valued and prioritized communal survival, we exemplify the concept of conatus essendi,

Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt (Deuteronomy 5:15).

This evocation is inextricable from Judaism, and it reminds us of the responsibility to record and transmit the history of the oppression. In order to build a just future, we must recall the oppressed past and have hope for its redemption.

About Hanna

Hanna is a Post-Soviet queer activist and educator from Moscow. Before coming to Pardes as a PEEP fellow, they studied Talmud with ZeKollel in Berlin and finished a degree in Middle Eastern studies. Hanna is passionate about philosophy, Post-Soviet Jewish history, social justice, and languages.

6 Benjamin, Walter, Über den Begriff der Geschichte, 1940.

רֵג, Ger, Stranger

By Alden Solovy

Excerpted from These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah

No less than thirty-six times, the Torah tells us not to oppress the stranger. Both Rashi and Ibn Ezra explain succinctly: the stranger—along with the widow and the orphan—is powerless. God further extends the simple admonitions against oppressing the stranger: strangers are given equal protection under the law (Leviticus 19:34).

The root of ger—‘foreigner, stranger, temporary dweller, newcomer’—is gimel-vavreish, meaning ‘to sojourn, dwell.’ The root, Klein notes, likely meant ‘to turn off, leave the way.’ The stranger has ‘turned off ’ from the journey, to dwell in a foreign land. A ger was a resident alien who was a free person but without political rights, generally someone from another land. While negotiating for Sarah’s burial place in a field near Hebron, Abraham calls himself a ger toshav, a ‘resident alien’ (Genesis 23:4).

Ibn Ezra notes a relationship between ger and the word gargir, ‘berry.’ He says that a stranger who is resident in another land “is like a berry plucked from a branch.” Rabbeinu Bachya embellishes the idea, saying that a stranger is like “an isolated berry at the far end of a solitary branch.” Having been strangers in Egypt, Torah explains, “you know the feelings of the stranger” (Exodus 23:9). Moses echoes this sentiment by naming his son Gershom, explaining, “I have been a stranger in a foreign land” (Exodus 2:22).

“Cursed be the one who subverts the rights of the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow” (Deuteronomy 27:19). Perhaps more startling than this curse—or the admonitions that the law must apply equally to the ger and the citizen (Leviticus 19:34; Numbers 15:15‒16)—is that we are commanded to love the stranger (Deuteronomy 10:19).

In Rabbinic times, ger took on the meaning of ‘convert.’ The Rabbis derive the principle of complete acceptance of the convert from the Torah’s attitude toward the ger. Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger says that the idea of ger as convert is hinted in the Torah when it distinguishes between a stranger residing with the Israelites who has taken on some of the customs of the people, and a ger, who is simply passing through.

Estranged

There are always Strangers among us, Some, so obvious, Some, so hidden, Estranged inside their hearts

By the circumstances of life, By strange workings of the mind, And unusual workings of the body.

Estranged

Inside the gates, Living perilously, Like a berry at the end of the branch, Resident but alien, Never fully embraced. Once, my father’s father’s grandfather, In ancient days, Bought a cave In a field near Hebron, So, at least, our family Could become Fully resident In death.

© 2023, Central Conference of American Rabbis. From These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah. All rights reserved. Not to be distributed, sold, or copied without express written permission.

About Alden

Alden Solovy is a modern day piytan, a traveling poet/preacher/teacher who uses Torah and verse to engage and inspire. Alden embodies the intersection of scholarship and heart. A new voice for ancientyearnings, his writings resonate with the soul and his presence is sought after in Jewish spiritual spaces around the world. A liturgist, lyricist, and educator, Alden challenges the boundaries between poetry, meditation, personal growth, and prayer. His writing was transformed by multiple tragedies, marked in 2009 by the sudden death of his wife from catastrophic brain injury. Solovy’s teaching spans from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem to Limmud and Leo Baeck College in the UK, and synagogues throughout North America. He is the author of four volumes from CCAR Press: These Words: Poetic Midrash on the Language of Torah (2023), This Grateful Heart: Psalms and Prayers for a New Day (2017), This Joyous Soul: A New Voice for Ancient Yearnings (2019), and This Precious Life: Encountering the Divine with Poetry and Prayer (2021). His work has also appeared more than 25 collections. Alden is the Liturgist in Residence at Pardes and an alum of the Year Program. He made Aliyah to Jerusalem in 2012.