End of Pardes

It’s the end of my study time here in Yerushalayim. For the end of our study session, we had a siyyum lunch, and people shared their thoughts on the summer in the form of words, poems, and songs. I didn’t get up and give a speech, but here’s what I would have said: I will miss getting up every day and walking to the bus, riding the bus and listening to the radio or to the conversations in Hebrew, seeing people reading Hebrew newspapers, or studying gemara, or praying tehillim on the way to work and school. I will miss the slowed down rhythm and the peace of Shabbat where you can walk and walk and not hear any sound except those of your own footsteps and a very occasional car on your way to shul. I will miss the possibility of being able to attend more than a dozen, perhaps two dozen synagogues in less than a 20 minute walk from where I live. I will miss wishing the guy in the corner makolet or the clerk at SuperSol “Shabbat Shalom” and have them answer “Shabbat Shalom” in return as if it was the most natural thing in the world, because here in Yerushalayim, it is. I will miss the quiet of knowing that right now all that I have to attend to is this piece of gemara in front of me, even if I am seriously questioning the meaning of the Aramaic and wondering where all of the things that I used to know went out of my head - was it the 16 years of rabbinic work, or lack of sleep from the kids, or does the hard drive just have too much information being stored there. It’s the end of Pardes (yes the English word paradise is related, probably they are originally from the Persian). In Hebrew and in Jewish text, the word Pardes is an acronym for ways of understanding text: P’shat (simple or plain meaning); Remez (hint or allegorical meaning); D’rash (the midrashic or interpretive sense); and Sod (the secret or mystical meaning). Yerushalayim is a place of Pardes. It’s a place that has many planes of existence.