PARADISE (pardes, פרדס), a subject near to my heart, is covered in this week's Philologos column in The Forward. It's a nice introduction to the complexities of the Hebrew word and its use in the famous story of the Four Who Entered Paradise in the Hekhalot literature.

Writing from San Francisco on June 9, The New York Times’s Edward Rothstein reviewed that city’s new Contemporary Jewish Museum, which has recently opened its doors to the public. “The jagged lights on [its] sloping lobby wall,” he wrote, “form four Hebrew letters that spell ‘pardes.’ That word has the same Persian root as the English word paradise. It alludes to a park, a garden, an orchard, and thus invokes the pastoral promise of Eden as well. This is the kind of esoteric symbol much beloved by the museum’s architect, Daniel Libeskind.”

It is indeed sufficiently esoteric for much of its significance to have eluded both Mr. Rothstein and whoever guided him through the museum. ...

Indeed. Read on for why.

I didn't know about the lights in the Contemporary Jewish Museum. If you go there, stay away from any water fountains.