The Next Dor...

By Adira Rosen

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.

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

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

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.