Jerusalem is a vortex of insanity

Granted, it's a nice insanity.

Today I was a little yeshiva bachur. I am studying for 3 days at Pardes, the modern orthodox yeshiva in Jerusalem. I started this morning with a mishna class, in which we learned about who can make up the zimun of 3 in birkat hamazon. Then a class on sources about women and mitzvot. I had lunch with Joe, and we talked about how to start (and fund) progressive centers for young people like Kavod house all over the country.

I had a brief meeting with Meesh, the outreach coordinator at Pardes. After talking to me about "my Jewish journey" for 10 minutes, she smiled and said, "So it shouldn't be hard for you to get your place packed up while you're here finding an apartment."

Then it was back to class. Afternoon midrash class focused on the character of Moses in Shemot. We talked about how Moses was a paradigm for Moshiach in the redemption story of the past, preparing us for the redemption story of the future. Finally
and topped it off with an evening hassidut hour in which Besht stories were told and crazy erotic truths revealed. Spookily, the teacher was breaking down one story and talked about how "it's never too late, the stakes just get higher as life passes along and it becomes harder to go inside the thing that you love."

Talked to Dan about his Jerusalem Post interview. Talked to Matthue about yeshiva. And now I'm home listening to Jay try to pitch funding for his Jewish philosophy magazine.

It was, in short, a long ass day. I learned more in 10 hours than I've learned this whole year. Tomorrow I have Zohar and Chumash. Wednesday picks up from today's classes again. And Thursday I am going to Simchat Shlomo, the hippie dippie ortho yeshiva to study halacha and hassidut.

It's a crazy vortex. Everyone here is nuts. Pass the beer.