Saturday, October 27, 2012

Setting My Goals For The Year


During orientation for the program I am in at Pardes (part of the Pardes Center for Jewish Educators), we were challenged to set goals for ourselves for the year. I was a bit apprehensive about doing this at first, and put it off until now for the following reasons. The first month at Pardes was a rush of orientation, meeting new people, and holidays, with only a little bit of time left to get used to the rhythm of learning at Pardes. I wanted to see what I was in for in my classes, before I set goals for myself. This second month has been entirely focused on getting used to the rhythm of learning at Pardes, which was a bit overwhelming at times.

On Friday afternoon, I set my goals while walking from the Nahalat Shiv'a area back to my Apartment (about 40 minutes). I want to tell you my goals, especially everyone learning at Pardes, because I see an opportunity for all of us to support each other in reaching our goals for the year.

 There are a couple of categories that I needed to establish before I could articulate my goals. They broke down into the categories of academic, professional and personal.
There is definitely overlap. For example, Hebrew and leading services are both professional and personal.     

My Academic Goals:

I will finish what is assigned for Chavruta (work you do with a partner) each day. 

I will memorize the list of verbs that appear in the Tanach x amount of times, and finally master those of the concepts in Biblical grammar that I am still foggy about.

I will get beyond my stumbling blocks when it comes to reading Hebrew out loud. I knew coming into Pardes that reading out loud in Hebrew is an area in which I need improvement. Besides working with a tutor for half an hour a week, I am going to spend about an hour in the Beit Midrash (the big room where we do our learning) after school working on this, three times a week. So if you see me reading out loud to myself, now you'll know why.
    
My Professional Goal(s):

I will continue to hone my skills as an educator. This will be achieved through working with a mentor and participating in peer teaching. For this I have to thank the PCJE team for working with us to make it happen, peer teaching was not originally part of the program.  

I will finally make a decision about what grade(s) I want to work with.
  

My Personal goals:

I will speak Hebrew for a minimum of one hour a week (hopefully more!).

The relatively immediate goal is that I will lead pesukey De'Zimra (preliminary morning blessings) at community davening and in the egalitarian service at Pardes. This ties in to my “reading Hebrew out loud” goal. I started with reading these blessings out loud, there are some seriously tongue twisting words involved. 

Next is that I will learn to lead Shacharit (literally the morning service)

Parallel to these is that, I will read torah by the end of the year. This I am learning to do in a class.

All are things that want to take on for myself, and are necessary for a Jewish educator.

The following are goals of well being. These are also what are going to make it possible to achieve my academic and professional goals:

I will walk for at least one hour a day, if anyone wants to join me, they are more than welcome. More than anything I am struggling with sitting in the Beit Midrash and class all day long. Exercise is not only good for you physically, it also releases endorphins which relieves stress.    

I will go to The Open Studio (Avigayle Adler's studio) at least once a month, again, if anyone wants to join me, they are more than welcome. I miss being artistic, and this also is a stress reliever. 

 Even though this is not a Devar Torah, I want to give everyone a blessing, me to, why not, that we are  all able to achieve the goals that we set for ourselves and if the opportunity presents itself to help others achieve their goals as well.



Saturday, October 20, 2012

The melody I could not recall

 For the past couple of years, on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I have been attending this Minyan  (service, today, this word is often used for groups who pray together but are not affiliated with a movement of Judaism) called Koleinu, at my parents synagogue. One year, before Rosh Hashanah, they has a workshop to teach new tunes that would be incorporated into the service. Everything that was taught was really beautiful. However, there was one melody that really stuck with me. This year, as Rosh Hashanah approached, I tried to remember that melody, and I just could not. I was very troubled by this because I usually have a very good memory for music.

Yesterday, I attended Sod Siach, a Minyan, that reminds me of the one from home. All of the sudden, a melody that the person leading us used, triggered the memory of the forgotten melody. As soon as I was outside again, walking home, I began singing the melody so I would not forget it. Then I sang it as I gathered what I was bringing to lunch, and on the way to lunch, I sang it while sitting in the park, and later, while taking a walk on "the rakevet" (a park that connects many neighborhoods in Jerusalem, which runs along the old train tracks). Finally, after Shabbat, I sat down and recorded myself singing it so I would not forget. My hope is that I can soon share this melody with my community at Pardes. Shavuah Tov everyone!

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Today I Was a Tourist


(I would have posted this yesterday but I did not have internet) Today is the one day of vacation that is not Shabbat or Chag, that I am in Jerusalem. Therefore, I decided that I wanted to do all the things that I would have done if I was here as a tourist during Sukkot. I went to Machane Yehudah, Ben Yehudah St., and The Old City. This was my first time going to The Old City since I have been in Israel. I have been to Machane Yehudah and Ben Yehudah St. several times. The difference is, that this time I brought my camera. I don’t want to overwhelm anyone with information so I will be breaking it down into several posts. I’ll just say for now that I did in four hours what most tourists would do in two days, and I did it all on foot. 

The Shuk was not as busy as I thought it would be. I started out at my favorite place Pri Ha’adama, a ceramics cooperative.This is a picture of the steps leading up to the store. I know, right (so cool)!


 Right next door is Uzi Eli. The man who owns this store believes that the fruit juice that he sells has healing properties. Even if it does not actually  have “the power”, the juice is fresh and delicious!



After going to these two specific places I wandered around taking pictures.

I just had to take this, I love Jerusalem Street Art!



Gummies!


Proof the light rail train exists and runs!

The following is easily the strangest/ funniest thing I experienced all day: I went into a clothing store that I had been to about three years ago, which is known for its cute skirts. I picked up a skirt and looked at the tag, it said Banana Republic. I thought nothing of it at first. Then I picked up another, it to said Banana Republic. I looked at each of the skirts again and determined that there was no way these skirts are from Banana Republic. I turned the skirts around and noticed the poor sewing job that had been done on every skirt I looked at. Apparently, someone was determined to give buyers the impression that these were from a high end, American retail store. They were better off without being tagged and needless to say I did not buy any skirts today.