The Talmudic story of the four who entered Pardes sticks with me. It’s definitely in my Jewish Story Top 10. I couldn’t tell you why. Maybe it shows I’ve got a 1/4 chance of making it out of this conversion alive and mentally/emotionally/religiously intact. Four men entered pardes: Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, Acher [“the other […]
Parsha Shlach: The Spies, the Ayin Tov, and Converts
This is my first post on Torah, but I just can’t resist this parsha. The story of the spies is one of my favorites, and last year, it was even the parsha when I visited Eretz Yisrael for the first time! Appropriate, right? The spies became a kind of analogy for my Birthright group, which […]
The Four Holy Cities of Israel
Just about everyone in the Western world knows that Jerusalem is a city that is holy to Jews. However, there are four holy cities in Eretz Yisrael (the land of Israel)! The Four Holy Cities are Jerusalem, Tzfat (also known as Safed), Tiberius, and Hebron. Jerusalem: Jerusalem is the center of the Jewish world. We […]