Saturday, December 25, 2004

starting to remember

finally starting to remember
bits a pieces of today's shiur (class)

It's the weekly Shabbat, shiur nashim, class for women
given by different people, at different homes, every week

This week Nurit Mendlekorn, who teaches Tanach, Bible in the Michlala, Women's College in Jerusalem, gave it. "...ad kiyavo Shiloh" was the theme/questions but we spoke a lot about the kingdom of Yehuda, son of Leah (David, Solomon etc) verses that of the Rachel line, from Joseph, Menashe, Efrayim, Benjamin (Saul)

People who've studied Bible with me know that I have this thing against King Saul, that he wasn't a good king and had a really pathetic end, begging, crawling, clutching at Shmuel Hanavi, Samuel the Prophet, after he lost the kingship because of his sins. He wasted his time as king fighting David instead of the philistines, sounds familiar? Ok, there's a line in which Samuel tells him that he would have had been king forever if he hadn't sinned. This was told to us with a question. Saul came from Rachel and not from Leah/Yehuda, and Yehuda brings the moshiach, messiah, so how could there have been a chance for Saul to be "king forever." To me it's very clear. It means that he would have died as king, meaning for him the kingship would be forever. But his sins caused it to be taken away.

We ended with something I had never heard: Chashmonayim (from Makabis) after great heroic Chanuka story, were totally wiped out. Why? They were from the priestly tribe, Levi, and weren't supposed to be the kings. They were supposed to be the priests and give Yehuda (the tribe) the kingship. They were all murdered by Hordus, Herodian, even the children he had with Miriam, of their family, and her, too. That's because we're all supposed to do what we're supposed to do and not try to be someone else.
Makes me think of the feminists who just made women's life harder by making women to try to do what men do on top of families, or the poor women who never had children because they were trying to be men.

Shavua Tov

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