Mystical Mondays

Today, I let myself get sucked into Pardes. Despite the queasiness I woke up with today, I threw myself into Pardes' schedule, and hoped my momentum would carry me from 8:30 AM until 9:30 PM (yep, thirteen hours, though I had a two hour lunch-break). I've actually felt a bit on the margin of the community only doing half-days at Pardes, though I've certainly done the learning I've wanted to do.

But what better excuse to try fuller days than a course on the Zohar (the most important Jewish mystical text out there, which we'll be studying using Daniel Matt's new ground-breaking translation) taught by Dr. Melila Helner-Eshed (a lecturer on Jewish Mysticism and Zohar at Hebrew University, a staff member of Sulcha, and a teacher at the Jewish Theological Seminary, amongst other credits)?

What's better is that it's followed with my Hasidut course (where, today, we had two guests - a couple who is Lubavitch, and deep in the Hasidic world), with plenty of l'chayyim to go around, in the form of chocolate liquer (and a box of burekas) that our teacher brought to class.

And then, of course, my lovely night learning with Ilana, where we read Gershom Scholem and looked at surveys of various types of Jewish meditation, informed by our own experiences.