What am I taking at Pardes?

I have now had two full days of classes at Pardes. We did not have class on Friday, to give us a full 2-day weekend. We have class tomorrow, on Sunday. Thus far, I am really liking my classes (even Hebrew!). I feel refreshed and more intellectually open with the mesh of both lecture/group participation and chevruta (pair) style learning.My first two classes are taught by the same teacher–who I really like and who appears to have great pedagogical prowess.

My first morning class is entitled “Esther”. It is an introductory tanakh (bible) course on the book of Esther. The teacher is very good at weaving in both excerpts from other books (of the Torah) and various midrash and rabbinic  texts. We learn in chevruta for about 1.25 hours of the 2 hour class. Thus far, in the first 2 days, we have read (in English in the bilingual tanakh) the first 24 lines of the book. I have not always agreed with some assumptions that have been made fact by my classmates throughout the class, but I definitely find it interesting. One thing I like about this class is that its a popular story that we are reading–the one read on Purim each year. But, I’ve never sat down and studied it in depth.

My second class is called Personalizing Prayer. Personalizing Prayer is a class about both spiritual growth and the service in the siddur (prayer book). Physically, this class is very large and the classroom is very small. So it is slightly unpleasant to sit in there for 2 hours without a desk. The class will be discussing obstacles to prayer, how different thinkers think about prayer, and the specific prayers in the siddur. We’ve started with Modeh Ani and moved on from there. I like this class, because I feel both ambivalent and indifferent about prayer at different times. It has been good to hear that others have the same feelings/thoughts. This class is mostly discussion thus far, although there will be chevruta. It’s just that time moves quickly with a large class.

My third class is called Law, Love, Justice and Power in Rabbinic Stories. This class will be dealing with rabbinic stories that have these subject matters within. This class meets only twice a week in the afternoons, so I’ve only experienced it once. This is also my highest level clas, which makes me a bit nervous but it’ll be good to have the challenge. I really like working with rabbinic texts–the one we took on was agaddah (a rabbinic story). We mostly worked in chevruta and then, like my first class, we also discussed as a course. I think that I will be learning a lot from this course.

And then I’m in Ulpan, which is hebrew class. I am in a lower level than I’d like but I plan to work hard and pass into a higher level for August. I also like this teacher. But there really isn’t much to say about ulpan.

I’m definitely happy with my learning–in my very short experience thus far–at Pardes. Later, hopefully, I’ll talk about the different sorts of students that are here and the environment, etc.