Pardes is running some kind of marketing campaign, and they asked me if I could write a note to anyone on a list of college-related people in Maryland. I didn’t know any of them, so I just chose Rabbi Menashe of the Johns Hopkins Hillel, thinking that maybe Baltimore could be a common point of reference.
It was only supposed to be a short note, but I wrote this:
Dear Rabbi Menashe,
I don’t believe we’ve met, but I’m writing you at the request of my yeshiva as a fellow Baltimorean and a member of the Baltimore Jewish community, to tell you about my experience learning here at Pardes.
I am a person that grew up in the Orthodox community, and attended TA from 3rd to 12th grade, and then learned for a year at Yeshivat HaKotel. But after those experiences, at 19, I found myself dissatisfied and uninspired. I had trouble connecting to my learning and to my own religious observance – much of it seemed at odds with other more rationalistic aspects of my character. I spent six or seven years in a kind of stasis, stalled in religious growth, and conflicted.
Thus, when after I arrived in Jerusalem for a sabbatical year, I inadvertently heard about Pardes, I was well overdue in finding some way to break that condition, and resume growth and self-unification. I was excited; Pardes seemed like it might really be able to help me progress. So I enrolled – unsure of how it would work out, but with great expectations.
Today, after learning here for almost six months, I can already say that my expectations have been met and greatly exceeded. I have been stimulated, challenged, inspired, and fully engaged by an incredible group of teachers and students. I now approach Torah study and Jewish studies with an eager, focused intent and a clarity of purpose that I had only dreamed of in the past. I feel that I am finally starting to reintegrate my Jewish heritage and tradition into the center of my life, incorporating them into the essence of my existence – in a way that is exhilarating, inspiring, and life-affirming.
I’m sure that the approach and environment here at Pardes aren’t for everyone, but for myself and the other members of the vibrant student community here, it is a haven for Torah study and personal development that helps fuse a rigorous intellectual approach to study with the rich texture of our Jewish heritage. I hope you will consider recommending Torah study at Machon Pardes to any students of yours that might be interested.
Please feel free to contact me if you’d like to ask any questions or discuss Pardes at further length. My US phone number (which rings in Jerusalem) is XXX-XXX-XXXX and my email address is XXXX.
Thank you,
Avi Flax
It seems that I like Pardes and what I’m doing here!
